Mark McMorris Infinite Air

HB Studios, who are no strangers when it comes to making sports games, attempted to recreate the adrenaline rush of speeding down a snowy mountain at death-defying speeds we once achieved with games like SSX Tricky. Just to give you some context, Mark McMorris, of Mark McMorris Infinite Air fame, was only seven years old when SSX Tricky came out. So yeah, it’s been a while since we've gotten our shred on. A word of warning: Infinite Air, even though it looks like it, is not an arcade snowboarding game. Patience is going to be your number one skill if you plan on pulling off some sick moves on ...

If you’re desperate for a snowboarding or extreme sports title and you don’t mind putting in the time, Mark McMorris Infinte Air will likely quench that thirst, but don’t expect to be racking up points and hitting perfect lines even after many hours of it. Paying full-price for something that I would suggest resembles pre-alpha gameplay seems like folly, especially with Ubisoft’s STEEP set to launch on 2nd December.

We haven't had a snowboarding game in a while, let alone a good one – and you could say the same of the entire extreme sports genre as a whole. The last shredding simulator came out in 2012, and even then it wasn't a very good one; it seems that the golden age of SSX and Shaun White Snowboarding on PS2 is well and truly over. Mark McMorris Infinite Air seeks to bring this genre back to its original heights, but make no mistake: this is not the next SSX.

Mark McMorris Infinite Air is the newest iteration in the snowboarding simulator genre – a genre that hasn’t been very active in the past couple of years. However, with the likes of Poppermost’s Snow and Ubisoft’s Steep headed to consoles, it stirs up quite the competition. While Mark McMorris Infinite Air roughly gets the basics down of what comprises a snowboarding simulator, it fails to provide anything unique or captivating to make it this generation’s “must have” snowboarding simulator. In fact, it may be one you can hold off on.

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Another thing that continued to irk me throughout was the points system. In some events you tackle the same jump multiple times, looking to outscore your opponents. Whenever I perfectly landed a trick that felt particularly skillful, I’d be shocked to see my score barely making it past 20 (out of a hundred point maximum). Then, on subsequent tries, simpler, less risky moves would somehow bag a higher rating.

It’s time to get big air in this new snowboard simulator: Mark McMorris Infinite Air. Pro snowboarder Mark McMorris lends his name to this freestyle snowboarding game, where you can explore a vast backcounty and carve your way through the mountain slopes or take part in big air events… or maybe test your skills in the snow parks. Unfortunately, in Infinite Air, you are actually pretty restricted to what air you can get. They should have called the game Mark McMorris: Limited Air.